Precast concrete wall panels are commonly used as architectural non-bearing curtain walls in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings for their appearance and insulation qualities. However, some architectural precast wall panels are designed to function as bearing or retaining walls as well.
Existing precast concrete wall panels have either solid or sandwich sections. However, the latter are more commonly used due to their light weight and insulation characteristics.
Sandwich panels are produced in many different forms and configurations aiming at the optimization of strength, weight and cost factors to achieve a structurally and economically sound panel. The sandwich wall panel derives its bearing capacity for compression and/or bending from the individual capacities of the different section elements and the composite action of these elements provided that the are enough shear connectors between them capable of transferring the shear forces without exhibiting appreciable slippage between the separate layers. This can usually be achieved by using the insulating core material as a medium transmitting the shear flow or by providing the section with metallic shear connectors of different shapes and configurations.